Supporters of Syriza tactics clueless about cold hard cost

A former boss of mine used the term “senior hurling” when we were engaged in what he considered a significant piece of business.

It is a powerful term in Ireland and encapsulates significance and seriousness while doing away with the frivolity and waffle that regularly surrounds business and economic debate.

Those who participate in senior hurling better be prepared and ready for a proper tussle.

Greek politicians have discovered they are now playing senior hurling and those who flirt with Syriza’s tactics as a solution to Ireland’s economic challenges had better take note.

Utter and complete economic chaos is now enveloping Greece and that has real consequences for ordinary people in that society. The debate about taking reductions in pay or pensions and raising taxes is over.

Instead, citizens are restricted to getting €60 per day from ATMs and an existential threat hangs over all euro incomes in that economy. Massive job losses are on the horizon and investment is in freefall. Welcome to the world of fringe economics.

While that travesty is unfolding, what exactly is going on in our economy, an equal part of the giant eurozone and one that had its own brush with catastrophe in the 2008-10 period? It is the absence of, rather than the presence of, headlines that answers this question.

No headlines about riots in the street. No sad colour pieces about pensions being eviscerated.

No mass unemployment and no dramatic collapse in income during 2015. It is quite remarkable, in fact, how quiet the economic landscape is domestically.

At a personal level, the threat of losing my job, enduring pay cuts, or having tax rates aggressively raised seem relatively remote.

All of this has to be digested by those who advance the Syrizia way as being in some manner an alternative vision for Ireland. Do we really want to, in effect, give two fingers to the ECB and IMF ? Think that one through.

The ECB and IMF effectively act as gatekeepers for global investors who buy Irish bonds. You might think bonds are some form of esoteric instrument best handled by big yacht- owning masters of the universe but the truth is more down to earth.

Bond investors finance the pay of Irish teachers, nurses and members of An Garda Síochána because we continue to run financial deficits in this country.

Moreover, those bond-holders are lending us that money at interest rates close to 1% currently because of actions by the ECB and IMF, together with the tough medicine we all ingested. Fancy risking that?

Many of the commentators on the choices facing Ireland are ‘Big Hat, No Cattle’ types. These are observers who have large opinions but very little skin in the game.

They have no hard decision-making powers but do have PhDs in headline grabbing, sounding populist, and offering solutions that superficially feel great.

It is only when you peel away the layers of verbiage and get into the weeds of analysis that awkward questions arise:

• Where will you be when pensioners have their incomes cleaved?
• What will you do when ATMs refuse to pay out more in a week than two thirds of the average industrial wage?
• What answers will you have for those losing their jobs as international investors depart Ireland and emigration resurfaces with a vengeance?

None of this banter matters while we all go about our daily lives in the absence of a general election, but that will change at some point in the next nine months.

At that stage it would be helpful if the actual circumstances in Greece are outlined to the electorate. Hurling on the ditch will not be an option.

Joe Gill is a director of corporate broking with Goodbody Stockbrokers. His views are personal.